Now that Hewlett-Packard appears to be a little tipsy, not really knowing where it is and what it's doing, Reuters is reporting that the company is working on selling its webOS operating system. HP acquired webOS as part of its purchase of Palm, made a big fuss about the whole thing, and then let it fizzle out. The company rumoured buy webOS? Oracle.

What one assumes to be likely doesn't automatically turn in to solid proof.

For instance:

Google tried to rip Oracle off with Java, Oracle was bound to sue them.

Over at Groklaw they have posted a transcript of testimony by Google's Inside Counsel (corporate lawyer), Bob Van Nest, about the negotiations between Sun and Google.

Dr. Cockburn, who is mentioned in the transcript, is Oracle's damages expert whose assessment was thrown out by the judge for being "based on nothing".

"Thanks to the superior efforts of Steve, we now have the transcript of the July 21 Daubert hearing on damages report prepared by Dr. Cockburn for Oracle. While we have seen some interesting facts in the documents filed in this case, this transcript adds to the riches.

For example, the licensing negotiation between Sun and Google on which Dr. Cockburn relies so heavily. Well, turns out it really was less about licensing intellectual property than it was about a strategic partnership between Sun and Google related to Android. Hear what Mr. Van Nest, outside counsel to Google tells the court:

MR. VAN NEST: The negotiation that took place was not a pure licensing negotiation. And that's been confirmed by all the participants, including Mr. Schwartz, the CEO of Sun at

(10)

the time.

Google had two essential options in building Android: They could have entered into a technology partnership with another company and contributed resources and engineers and built Android together, that's what they were discussing, in fact, with Sun.

They discussed that same thing, Your Honor, with several other companies that already had virtual machines. So they went to several companies, not just Sun, and said, do you want to build this project with us together? We'll provide engineers and technology, you provide engineers and technology, and we'll build the product together and the advantage of that was, it might be a little faster.

The other option they had was to build it on their own, build it independently and using their own engineers, own technology and/or licensing technology from other third parties, not --not just Sun, because many other folks were building virtual machines.

What happened was, they couldn't come to terms with Sun --by the way, in those negotiations, there wasn't any specific discussion of the patents. Nobody showed them Sun patents. Nobody said, are you infringing these patents. They didn't see these Sun patents until Oracle showed them to them a month before -

THE COURT: Why did they need their license, then?

(11)

MR. VAN NEST: They were negotiating a technology partnership, they were negotiating an agreement. They weren't coming to say, we need a license to your technology, they were coming to say, we have a product and a project we would like to build, we would like to build it together, you guys have technology that might be useful, we have technology that might be useful, let's partner together and build it.

And that is what was being proposed in 2005 and 2006 in these discussions we've been talking about. That was not acceptable, ultimately, either to Google or to Sun, they couldn't reach term on that. So Google went out, they built their own. They used a clean-room environment. They didn't look at any of these Sun patents we're talking about.

And the kicker is, Your Honor, discussions continued, there were further discussions; Sun became more and more and more interested in getting on the Android bandwagon.

So when Android was announced in 2007, Sun didn't throw up their hands and say, oh, my gosh, you're infringing, Sun congratulated Google on Android, welcomed Android to the Java community, put Android on Sun products, asked Google how they could help Android."

Now just because he is testifying under oath doesn't mean that you have to believe him. But if others who participated, such as Mr. Schwartz, testify to the same thing then will you think they are doing it to sabotage Oracle's entitled income stream?

And just below that part is more testimony about how Java was always licensed for de minimis (mis-spelled in the transcript) rates. Does that automatically translate into $billions in compensation? I won't say you be the judge. There is one in place already. (o;)

I'd say if Google needs to license Java they need to pay a fair price. Considering the huge amount of Android devices out there that should be rewarding enough for Oracle.

However I don't see any mention of a deal with Apple or Microsoft to join in the fun to attack Google. They may very well have such a deal, which I don't believe, but Thom does. Neither of us have any proof. Companies have been sued for less.